Chicago passes NYC as US murder capital

Chicago, Illinois usurped New York City as the murder capital of America in 2012, according to a report released this week by the Federal Bureau of Investigation.

The FBI published on Monday a crime statistics analysis for the
previous calendar year in which it’s reported that the Windy City
saw a surge in homicides during 2012 that boosted it above New
York and other major metropolitan areas to become the bloodiest
in the United States.

According to the FBI report, Chicago was the site of more murders
in 2012 than any other city, with its body count of 500 dwarfing
NYC’s tally of only 419.

In terms of population, however, Chicago has only a fraction of
the people that New York does. The US Census Bureau has listed
the number of Chicagoans at around 2.7 million — a meager number
when compared to New York’s 8 million-plus.

One year earlier, the FBI recorded only 431 homicides in Chicago.
That same year the agency acknowledged there were 515 murders in
New York, indicating that while things may be getting better on
the East Coast, the Midwest metropolis has seen a surge in
murders since 2011.

As RT reported previously, last year marked the first time 2008
that Chicago hosted over 500 murders.

Overall, the FBI believes violent crime increased across the
nation last year by 0.7 percent, the report concluded. With
regards to murder and nonneglient manslaughter, however, figures
suggest those crimes are on the rise. Taking into account all
cities with populations over one million, the FBI determined that
murder and manslaughter surged by 1.4 percent between 2011 and
2012; cities containing between 500,000 and 999,999 residents saw
an increase by 9.7 percent.

Additionally, the FBI determined that 69.3 percent of all
homicides across the nation involved the use of a firearm.

The latest report from the FBI was published at a time when the
topic of gun-control has again entered the spotlight following a
massacre in Washington, DC Monday morning that left 13 people
dead, including the suspected shooter.

"You know, I do get concerned that this becomes a ritual that
we go through every three, four months, where we have these
horrific mass shootings," US President Barack Obama said in
the interview on Tuesday with the Spanish-language television
network Telemundo. "Everybody expresses understandable horror.
We all embrace the families — and obviously our thoughts and
prayers are with those families right now as they're absorbing
this incredible loss. And yet we're not willing to take some
basic actions."

In the wake of some particularly bloody episodes in Chicago in
recent months, lawmakers there have exercised numerous options in
hopes of curbing the number of violent crimes. In May, three
people were killed and 20 shot during a single night in Chicago;
in July, 10 were killed during a single weekend. In an attempt to
keep the number of gun-related fatalities down, State Rep.
Monique Davis (D) asked the governor in July to deploy the
National Guard to patrol the streets of Chicago.

"It's almost as if there’s a war going on," Davis told the
Chicago Sun-Times. "It seems like it is genocide, and those
officials who can do something about it have chosen not to do
anything about it. I'm calling for the National Guard to come to
Chicago and ride up and down these streets."

Rounding out the top five American cities with the most murders
in 2012, according to the FBI, are Detroit, Michigan (386),
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania (331) and Los Angeles, California
(299). Reid Wilson of the Washington Post wrote that, taking into
account Detroit’s population, last year’s numbers equate to one
murder for every 1,832 residents.